Orchid House by Cindy Martinusen Coloma

still quoted their favorite lines.
    â€œPaco, give it a rest. We don’t even know if there’s a theater nearby,” Timeteo said as they stepped into the courtyard.
    â€œTwo blocks away. I spotted it already,” Paco said with a wide smile.
    â€œI say, let’s get this business over, and then I’m skipping Bruce Willis for the ago-go bars,” Frank said.
    They stepped out to the street below and, as if to punctuate his words, flashing lights and enticing images greeted them.
    Frank grinned. “Look, it’s a sign!”
    Manalo shook his head as they walked onward. “Let’s just get through this meeting first.”
    â€œT HIS BUS HAS NO AIRCONDITIONING. DO YOU HAVE A HANDKER -chief?” Raul asked as he sat down stiffly beside Julia.
    Her luggage was piled high in the seat behind them, and she realized his shamed embarrassment that she was on a rundown bus and not in the hacienda car.
    â€œA handkerchief?” she asked, shifting to the right of a sharp tear in the seat.
    â€œHere.” He pulled a white square of cloth from his pocket and pantomimed patting his forehead with the fabric before giving it to her. He took out a flowered handkerchief from his back pocket and dabbed his own neck and face.
    â€œThank you. You said it’s five hours to the hacienda?” Sweat ran down the curve of her back and between her breasts, and she wondered if a bus this decrepit-looking could actually make such a journey. She noticed two red chickens in a pen several seats ahead.
    â€œUnless traffic is lessened, but probably five, yes.”
    The bus rumbled to life, emitting a huge puff of black smoke. Passengers continued to glance back at her. A couple of children even sat turned with their hands on the back of the cracked vinyl seat three rows up, watching Julia’s every move. She hadn’t anticipated that her skin would be such an anomaly in the Philippines. Celebrity or circus freak—she wasn’t sure which they saw her as.
    The bus took off with a start, lunging into traffic and making Julia wonder if their pilot was a former taxi driver who didn’t realize he was now driving a bus.
    Julia had the sense that she was truly on her way now. Part of her wanted to put out her hands and say, Slow down, let me take this in, let me adjust to one thing and then the next.
    In the past two years, she’d lost the man who had been her entire life, left her company job for freelance work that she cared little to build, and faced her grandfather’s diagnosis. Time had passed in a kind of dull resonance until the final months of being with Grandpa Morrison. Now she faced instant change—seeing Nathan again, flying to Manila, heading toward the plantation—it felt fast, too fast.
    The highway passed towering malls and cinemas and colossal billboards displaying brands like Calvin Klein and Guess jeans. It crossed a sludgy brown river filled with garbage and lined with shanty houses stacked and staggered upon each other. Julia saw a television flashing through an open doorway and half-clothed children playing outside on the sidewalk with a scrawny dog. Poverty existed just blocks from tall professional buildings with restaurants and clubs. They drove along shops like strip malls without side-walks, crowded with every class level of Filipino walking and shopping together. In a strange way, the juxtapositions mirrored herself—the woman she was, the girl she’d been, and the fight between them to be something new and more and better.
    She was so lost in thought that she jumped when Raul asked, “Would you like a Coke, miss?”
    The bus wasn’t fully stopped when vendors came aboard.
    â€œA Coke would be nice, thank you.”
    Raul waved a woman over, bought two Cokes, and popped the top off hers.
    The cool liquid tasted much sweeter than at home, but it was a welcome relief down her dry throat. Julia’s skin already felt sticky and